Mexico and Australia help needed
gscoins
Posts: 313 ✭✭✭
I recently received back from the PCGS graders two coins which I have owned for a long time (in one case over 40 years) and finally got around to getting graded. One is the 1906 Mexican centavo with the wide date (MS63RB). Here's the TrueView photo:
The second is a 1954 Australian florin (not the Royal Visit commemorative) (MS65), TrueView as follows:
I did a little digging on the PCGS website for each of these coins and found some surprises.
The 1906 wide date centavo appears to be quite scarce. There are 15 graded 1906 narrow centavos in all (BN, RB and RD), but only one wide date (my copy). Are the wide dates really that rare? The Krause catalog does distinguish between wide and narrow dates for the 1905, 1906, 1910, 1911 and 1914 issues (and for some there are price differences), but do Mexican coin collectors even care about wide versus narrow dates? (I noticed the Mexican one centavo registry set doesn't include slots for the two types of dates.)
PCGS gives some sales information for the florin. In 64, it has sales at $119 to $229 (all on Ebay). But the single MS 65 sale (at the January 2015 Heritage NYINC sale) sold for $1762! In my view the Heritage copy didn't have especially pretty toning (nor, for that matter, does mine), so I am puzzled by the ten-fold increase between 64 and 65.
So, I would welcome those of you with expertise in Mexico and Australia to weigh in on these coins with your thoughts on rarity, value, etc.
Comments
About the centavo- the 1906 is fairly common and pops can be misleading regarding rarity when the coins are relatively inexpensive as there is not a lot of incentive to spend $30 (or more, if you consider shipping) to get them graded.
Australia is a very difficult market to explain and understand. MS65 and higher graded coins bring good money and they are elusive. I have some concerns that the high end market might be thinly traded which creates reluctance.
Experience the World through Numismatics...it's more than you can imagine.
Modern Mexico is similar- there is interest in top pops for registry sets and those can go for big bucks but it's a thin market.
I suspect you will have trouble getting MS 65 money for the Australian coin. It has poor eye-appeal due to the black marks so prominently seen on the obverse and a generally unattractive toning pattern.